Zentangle patterns, artwork and more

New Pattern: UDUDU

When I draw, I mutter to myself sometimes .. and this pattern is one of “those“.
UDUDU is made from 7 strokes in one motion. Up, Down, Up, Down, Up = UDUDU

I was practising my ‘lazy C shapes’ when this pattern appeared in front of me.

And here is my artwork in big format.
Further down I show you step by step how I did it.

First I drew a pencil baseline and added dots in regular intervals (see Step 1 of the step out). Then the UDUDU began – up, down, up down. Turn the sheet and repeat – up, down, up, down. Looking good so far.

Now I doubled all the ‘down’ lines. And POP – here comes the dimension!

Repeat on the lower half.

The next step did take quite some time. I was shading and shading – layer upon layer.

Then came the real tricky part: creating a realistic looking drop shadow. It took a lot of graphite to get that right! First I started outlining very roughly the shape – offset from the image. I rubbed the graphite into the paper with a soft cloth. Then it was time to add the holes – ERASER to the rescue!

I am using a kneaded eraser for a job like this. You can shape it to any form you require, squish it on to the paper and the graphite will stick to the pliable material. It was really hard not to smudge any of the previous shading.

Due to all the graphite, the original black lines didn’t seem crisp enough. So I went over again with the black marker, ensuring not to smudge anything.